The Days That Followed
by Kommi
Summary: In war; you come to expect death, in some cases even invite it. So when you survive a war and find yourself back in the town where you grew up, that mindset may sometimes refuse to change. This is the case for Leena, who must now find a way to live with herself after allowing so many of her comrades to die, even the one she loved more than anything.


I still remember the last words he whispered into my ear as he embraced me for what turned out to be the final time. His last message, one that I knew he meant wholeheartedly. And as soon as the words had left his lips, he turned and walked out of my life. I never even got a last look at his face.

And I know that he meant well by those words, searching for a way to offer closure in whatever way his admittedly primitive mind would let him. But these good intentions amounted not to the positive outcome that he had hoped for, but instead inspired a dark change that I had not experienced before. His final words were not the loving final memory that I thought back to whenever I needed direction in life, it was all but the opposite.

The words soured my perception of life, one that I did not think could become any more darkened. The words crossed my mind in the midst of trauma and pain, and served only to further the pit that I had been digging myself into. And for this I felt guilty beyond words.

If Raz had known what his words were going to do to me, I know that he never would have said them. Anything that he could have done to hurt me I know he would never do, and that was why this hurt so bad. More so than the pain of the words themselves and my new perspective on life, I was weighed down by the guilt that my own pain brought to me. Every time I would shut myself down I saw Raz's face, gazing at me with regretful eyes. He would speak to me without a voice, moving his lips and formulating sentences that I could only imagine. The fact that my pain would have brought him pain hurt more than anything I had ever felt.

When the war was over, I felt a strange sense of confusion that lingered with me as I made my way home and resettled back into what I could of my 'old' life. Was that it? Was this the conclusion that I had been working towards this whole time? I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I felt somehow unfulfilled; as though this ending wasn't everything that I hoped it would have been.

I thought back to the time I spent during the war and almost felt sick to my stomach over how I felt. Every fight was riddled with death, some personally impacting me and some just adding themselves onto the growing list of casualties that I kept locked into the back of my head. And this gave me a new perspective on how I saw life, on how I saw my friends.

I had seen so much death, I had caused to much death. I felt the only logical conclusion was that I would die too. It's messed up to think about, but I thought the conclusion would be all of us dying.

Not that I worked towards this conclusion myself or anything, I would always try my best and do everything that I could to save myself and my teammates. And on the surface level, maybe I thought that I wanted to live. I wasn't sure. But then again, I'm still not sure about the desire to die in the back of my mind either.

But the ending didn't take into account any of my feelings, it didn't take into account how I thought that things would end or what I thought would happen. It simply created a new path that I was forced to take whether I wanted to or not.

"Hafen… it looks the same as when we left."

I shook my head vigorously in response to Claude's speaking up, dismissing the thoughts that had been occupying my mind for almost the entire train ride. I followed Claude's eyes and looked out the train window beside me. And, just as Claude had said, I gazed upon my home city of Hafen looking exactly like it did before we had enlisted all those months ago, like the war had completely forgotten about it.

Riley, who had been sitting beside me, lent over for a closer view of the city, putting her hand on my leg to keep herself steady. A huge smiled covered her face as she looked at the city with wide eyes, taking it all in. "Wow… I'm almost surprised that it's actually here…"

"I know what you mean…" Clause shook his head in disbelief, "after all the twist and turns we've had to go through, it almost feels weird for something to go exactly as we thought it would."

I remained in silence, still looking at the city I used to call home. Not that I had anywhere else to call home, but after everything that we have been through I just felt so unattached. There were no longer any strings tying me to this place, only nostalgic memories and a past that seems a million years away.

"What about you Leena?" Riley shook the hand she had placed on my knee to grab my attention, "you're being a bit more quiet than usual. Not that you aren't always quiet"

"I'm just… speechless" I half lied, "It's been so long. Everything is exactly the same, but for some reason it feels so different."

"I know what you mean," Claude answered, lowering his head in thought, "We've all changed so much, it's almost weird that Hafen didn't change with us."

I simply nodded my head, turning away from the view of Hafen and instead taking a look around the train that we rode in. It was almost empty, us and a couple families on the other side of the aisle being the only ones who rode the train that day. Not that this was surprising, considering how small Hafen was and how little visitors it got. You would think that there would be more people traveling here with the end of the war having happened and all, but still.

"This still feels so surreal, like it isn't supposed to be happening." As I looked around the train, Riley spoke up once again. "While we were fighting, I never really thought about what I would do after the war was over. And now that the war is over, I barely know what I actually wanna do."

"What happened to rebuilding your father's company? That's something at least." I reassured her with a smile. She smiled back.

"That's something, definitely. And now that I have all this money from serving, I think I might actually be able to make it happen. I just wish I knew how, or even where to start." She offered a half smile, scratching the back of her head with a small laugh.

As our conversations came to a close, the train took its' place beside the Hafen train station and came to a smooth stop. A voice over the intercom told us that we were cleared to exit, so we all lifted ourselves to our feet and grabbed our luggage before making our way to the doors.

When we got off the train and onto dry land, we all let out a sigh of relief, stretching our sour limbs that had gone numb from sitting on a train for upwards of three hours. We all walked side by side as we made our way to the town's center.

The sun had finally started to set by the time we made it to the center, and I took that as my opportunity to leave. I let out a long yawn and stretched out my arms again.

"You guys should go ahead and visit everything without me," I started, "it's getting pretty late and I am dying to get some sleep in my own bed for the first time in forever."

Riley and Claude both looked at me with concern, Claude placing an assuring hand on my shoulder.

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay going back to your place by yourself? We all have some trauma that we are having to deal with, but I think it would be a bad idea to deal with it alone. Especially with Kai…"

"I will be fine, I promise." I waved my hand dismissively, "I'm probably just going to go home and pass out anyway. It's been a long day. And besides, I wanna give you guys some privacy to check things out again here after so long."

"If you're sure, Leena. But if anything happens you better come find us." Riley pointed her finger at me in a jokingly threatening way as she said this. Claude just gave a short chuckle.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," I raised my hand as if saying an oath. "It won't be hard to find you, anyway."

"Okay..." Riley gave in, though still sounded concerned. I simply waved her off though, offering a final farewell as I parted ways from the two of them.

I walked down the same path as I always had, surprising myself with how vividly I still remembered every step. Every business that sat on either side of the dirt road, all of the treacherous holes that could have made me lose my balance, even some of the scattered patches of grass that found a way to grow among the dirt were at least vaguely familiar looking.

There was the grocery store that we had always gone to, eating all the free samples instead of actually buying anything. Then there was the restaurant that we all considered our favorite, having been ran by an old man that would always throw us a couple free things whenever we would come in. And there was the school we had spend the first sixteen years of our lives at, studying as hard as we could and trying to decide what we wanted to do with our lives. And even after having been in the military and risking my life for as long as I had, I was no closer to figuring out what I wanted to do then. I made a slight left turn at a fork in the road and finally saw my old home come into view.

I hadn't stepped foot in the place in what felt like years and there wasn't anybody keeping up with it while Kai and I were gone, so I wasn't surprised when I saw that it had fallen into a slight state of disrepair. For the most part though, the house was still in a generally good condition that probably could have been fixed up in a couple of afternoons.

When I reached the front door, I dug into the small bag that I carried to my side and pulled out my key. The bag contained all of the things I had brought with me to the military, which definitely wasn't much; only a couple pairs of street clothes and a couple mementos to remind me of life back home. I put the key into the door and unlocked it for the first time in a long while, pushing the door open as I turned the knob.

The living room was just as messy as it had been when we had left, though that was at no fault of my own. I remember asking Kai to clean up his things before he left, but even then I knew that he wasn't going to. The only furniture had been a couch in the center of the room and a dining table with chairs off slightly to the side. Mine and Kai's room were at opposite ends of the house, while the restroom sat next to mine. The walls were a dark shade of green, and the floors had been carpeted white with a few stains that we had caused as younger kids. I placed my bag onto the floor with a sigh and began picking up some of the clothes that were strewn around the room, clumping them up into a big ball so I could carry them all in one arm.

I could still smell Kai's scent in this room, a smell that I thought I would have long since forgotten while I was serving. But no, the instant the smell reached my nose was the same instant that every single memory that the two of us shared came aggressively flooding back into my head. There was a painful twang in my heart that forced me to wince uncomfortably, but I was still able to keep my composure as well as I could.

I gripped tightly onto the clothes that I carried until it hurt my fingers as I walked towards the side of the house that Kai's old room had been on. I stopped in front of his door and couldn't help but keep my eyes placed onto the floor, as if my subconscious was afraid of making eye contact with anything of Kai's. Simply standing here was enough to make the pain in my heart intensify to a frightening degree, until I couldn't help but give out a painful and audible moan. I wanted to put these clothes back into Kai's dresser, but at this point it was impossible for me to even open his door.

With that, I placed the clump of clothes on the ground in front of the door, my face still contorted in a painful squint. I turned away and started towards my bedroom door, but the pain refused to stop. I gripped my door knob as tightly as I could and gave out a frustrated groan, almost like I was trying to force contentment onto myself. It didn't work.

I stepped into my room and was unsurprised to see that nothing had changed since I had originally left. Luckily, I was always a more organized person than Kai; and my room reflected that. My bed was still made, my clothes were still tucked and folded away neatly, and even my closet had been organized. Aside from some dust that had accumulated, I would say that things were almost in pristine condition.

I sat down upon the blue sheets that covered my bed, letting out a deep sigh as I gazed around the room. Claude was right, it really felt weird seeing that my room remained completely untouched even after the painful few years that I had experienced. We changed, and it felt like nothing else did or would.

I turned to the window beside my bed and unlocked it, pushing it open so that I could give myself some fresh air. And who knows, maybe the fresh air would help with the dust that had settled and made it somewhat difficult to breath.

I opened my closet door and sorted through my things, pulling out a still clean pair of pajamas. I stepped out of my street clothes and threw the pajamas on, surprised to find that they still fit me for the most part. It hung slightly loose considering the weight that I had lost in the army, but hopefully as things returned to normal I would continue living a healthy life and gain all of the weight that I lost back. I thought that to myself, and I wasn't sure why, but for some reason an inkling in the back of my head filled me with doubt that I would be able to gain the weight back. It was weird.

I leaned back onto my bed on top of my covers, simply staring at the wall above me. At this point the sun had set and the entire room was dark, but I still imagined the top of my ceiling and counted the bumps and cracks in my head. The sound of the town's nightlife outside came in through my window, but this gave me more of a nostalgic feeling than one of annoyance. It wasn't like I was going to be going to sleep any time soon, anyway.

And so I laid on my bed motionless for I didn't even know how long, staring at the ceiling all the while. Eventually I had passed out and entered a slumber, but I couldn't have told you when. It just felt so weird to be back here, back in a state of 'normal'. The only lingering proof that anything had changed had been Kai's absence, and the pain in my soul that this caused.

X

I awoke the next morning with a sudden jolt after feeling the morning's sun shine in through my still open window. I sat up with a groan, realizing that I felt just as if not more tired than I had been when I first passed out. It was difficult to motivate myself out of my bed, but I somehow managed.

I made my way into the bathroom neighboring my room to splash some water onto my face, but found myself fascinated by the reflection that I saw in the mirror. I had seen the reflection many times, but it was somehow different now that I was in my own home, reminded of that same reflection I gave off before leaving.

The dark rings around my eyes had darkened in my time away, and the skin on my face seemed a lot tougher to the touch, its smoothness long since having gone. As I undressed, I began noticing the physical changes that littered my figure. So many different scrapes and scars that had come from bullets and travel alike, in peculiar a rather deep cut on my side that came from a stray bullet. It was one of the few that I remembered receiving. Mostly because Raz had saved me.

His image came to the forefront of my mind once again, and the twang in my heart returned twofold. I remember the image of his form standing over me as he fought off what seemed like hundreds of Imperial soldiers. I saw him in a new light at that moment, especially from the way his face contorted in a determined fashion. At that moment, he really was invincible. Nothing could stop him. And I thought that was magical, like when a daughter would look towards her father and imagine that he was a superhero.

I realized that this was a farce after seeing the way he looked at me before leaving on his final mission. The determined look returned with his inspiration, and at this time I looked at him the same way as I had when he had always been protecting me. He was invincible, there was nothing that could stop him. Especially now that he was faced with such impossible odds. The suicide mission label seemed not like a warning to Raz, but a challenge that he had to conquer. But he failed the challenge. He never came back.

I was torn away from my thoughts by the sound of a branch breaking outside my bathroom window. Instinctively tapping into my self defenses, my head snapped towards the direction of the sound as my whole body tensed in preparation for some kind of combat.

The look on the face of the child that had been peeping on my naked form was almost humorous as he turned tail and ran from my house as quickly as his legs would carry him. I couldn't help but smile, even through the discomfort that I felt having had my privacy breached.

I remembered being that kids' age, not thinking through any of my actions and instead just doing whatever sounded fun or exciting without hesitation. In a way I was still the same, though I definitely looked upon things in a dimmer light.

I could almost feel the child's' innocence as he ran away, probably fearing for his life in a quite similar way as I had when I ran for an imperial. I longed for this simplicity once again, yet I knew that after having experienced the true bitterness of the world there was no possible way I could go back. I was older, weakened, jaded.

I threw back on my clothes and went back into my room, gazing at the clock in the living room as I did. It was 9:00 AM, much later than I was used to waking up. The next time I moved from my bed long enough to look at the clock again, it was 10:00 PM.

Nobody came to see me that day, and so I hadn't moved from my bed. Instead of checking out the town that I hadn't stepped foot in for years or spending time with Claude and Riley, I sat in my bed staring at the wall for more hours than I could count, reliving the countless stories that I had buried away in the back of my head. Part of me was surprised and disappointed that Riley and Claude had never come to visit me, while the other part wasn't surprised at all. We spent so much time aboard the federation cruiser trying to give Riley and Claude alone time to further along their relationship, so now that their relationship had blossomed it was no wonder they were so used to being alone. They wanted to share the old memories together, and I wasn't surprised that they had forgotten about me. I would have too, having been just a third wheel anyway.

When I first started heading home I was so excited to return back to my old life, but as I got closer and closer to Hafen it became clear that this excitement was ill placed. My old life was gone; I had changed too significantly and while two of the people I used to spend so much time with were now dating and only finding time for each other, the other two were gone to a world I had no access too.

I shook my head exasperatedly, dismissing these thoughts and feeling guilty about having had them in the first place. Claude and Riley were my friends and it had only been a single day since I had seen them last, who was I to make these bold claims about how they were 'abandoning' me and 'only finding time for each other. I knew they were better than that, and I knew that they cared about me more than that as a friend. Or at least I hoped they did.

This feeling of doubt was spiraling in my head, creating thoughts and various ideas that justified the unwarranted concern that I had. And as I lost myself in my head, it became harder and harder to simply dismiss these ideas as nothing more than paranoid ideas.

I felt like I had grown so close to everyone that I shared the battlefield with, and even shared heartfelt farewells to the ones that had survived all the combat along with me. But these people that I had at one time considered my closest friends were now moving past the traumatic time that we spent in the army, so who was I to expect Claude and Riley to do any different? Who was I to expect them to go out of their way for me when they had their own issues to worry about?

I sat up from my bed, pushing my hands into my temple and closing my eyes tightly. All this thinking was hurting my head, and there was nothing I could do to escape it. All of my attempts to contradict the thoughts were quickly cast aside, and my sleeping all day made it impossible to simply sleep the thoughts away. This was a battle I could not escape from or attack from a distance, this was one that I had to charge head first into the fray of.

I stood from my mattress and put back on my street clothes, deciding that a walk around the town might ease my mind and help me go back to sleep. I stepped outside and locked the door behind me.

Hafen had a surprising amount of bars and restaurants that stayed open late, encouraging those looking for something fun to do to stay out late. That was why, in spite of how late it had been, the streets were still flooded with many more people than I thought would be awake. Plenty of drunk townsfolk and farmers staggering their way around looking for another drink, and another plenty of middle school aged kids grabbing a bite to eat with their friends.

I could feel the gazes of all the people surrounding me falling onto me, and this made me feel rather anxious and uncomfortable. I couldn't tell what it was, but something about me was attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Before I could think too hard about it though, a rather drunk middle aged man stumbled towards me.

"Hey you there, cootie…" He slurred, almost tripping over his own two feet as much as he was tripping over his words, "I didn't know that they let cute girls into the militardy... Thanks for yer servicts"

It was then that I remembered the squad issued hat that I had gotten used to wearing atop my head, one that clearly signaled the fact that I was a soldier, or an ex-soldier really. I really didn't feel like humoring this obviously drunk man, but at the same time I didn't want to come off as rude.

"Your welcome." I nodded, ignoring his rude observations about my appearance and trying to push past him. He stood his ground though, refusing to let me leave so easily.

"Hey don't be like that…" He continued to slur, putting a hand on my shoulder as a wide, flirtatious appeared on his face. "let me do something to thank you…"

"It's fine, don't worry about it," I spat aggressively, trying to push past him again. The man was much heavier than me though, and easily ignored my attempts to push past him. He moved himself closer towards me, taking his hand of my soldier and grabbing my ass with the other. I couldn't stand this guy anymore.

Without much thought, I instinctively balled my hand into a fist before slamming it against the side of his face. He visibly left the ground as he fell to the side, letting out a yelp of pain.

"What the fuck, bitch! Can't you take a fucking compliment?!" He screamed at me, gathering the attention of all the patrons surrounding me. I may have been made uncomfortable thinking that everyone had been staring at me earlier, but now they really were. And that made me feel a million times worse. I didn't bother responding to the man's yelling, instead putting my head down and quickly walking away while I tried to attract as little attention as possible.

From the window in one of the shops that I passed during my escape, I could have sworn that I saw the silhouette of Claude and Riley drinking and interacting with some obviously drunk townspeople. There was nothing about the figures that gave me any certainty that it was Claude and Riley, but the damaged and hurt state that my head was in didn't need much evidence to jump to bold conclusions.

I was finally beginning to understand some things, things that I hadn't even thought about when I first laid eyes upon or stepped foot into Hafen. The weird atmosphere that the city gave off wasn't due to the fact that we had changed while the city hadn't, it was because the city HAD changed. While we were away, the town's people did just as much changing as we had. And just like us, the town had only changed for the worse. And seeing the figures of Claude and Riley interacting with these people only assured me that they were the same as them, that they approved of this change. But I didn't. This wasn't my home anymore, as far as I was concerned.

I felt like I should have been feeling anger at this moment; anger at the man for groping me or anger at the city for seemingly abandoning me, but I couldn't bring myself to. Instead, a feeling of dread weighed down upon me and made it impossible for me to look up from the ground beneath my feet.

I stepped away from the main road after a while and took a familiar dirt path that I remembered from when I was a kid, one that I used to visit almost every day. And it was only then that I began looking around again, taking in the sights that still seemed the exact same as when I left them.

At the end of the path there was a small bench underneath the shade of a tree's branches, one that seemed a lot bigger in my adolescence. This was where the five of us had used to come when we were kids, the place where we came to share all of the secrets we had or talk about the weird things that we discovered while growing up. Looking back, everything seemed so trivial; but at the time, the things we would talk about were our entire world. The secrets we shared were ones we would have died to protect, even if it was a crush that we had on someone in our class.

I sat down at this bench and looked ahead at the nature ahead of me, basking in its simple beauty. It was pretty to look at it, and that was all the backstory that there needed to be.

"I wonder what you're doing right now, Raz…"

I looked up at the sky as I mumbled this thought to myself, letting my mind wander through the million things that Raz might have been thinking right now. Maybe he was congratulating me for knocking out that drunk guy while telling me about how much he wished he could have been the one to throw the punch. Or maybe he was just sitting in silence beside me, basking in the view the same way that I was.

"You need to reach back out, don't get lost in yourself. They all love you so much."

I could almost hear Raz's voice in these words, I could almost feel his presence beside me, and I could almost grip his hand as it rest beside me. Almost.

The tears welled up in my eyes as they always did, and I quickly cast them aside as I had always done. I was strong, I survived an entire war for fuck's sake. I could find a way to survive this.

I stood from my seat on the bench and began making my way back home.

X

The next couple of weeks were spent in a half conscious fugue state in which I could hardly find the motivation to do anything. I was sleeping for entire days at a time, hardly eating during the time that I spent awake, and bathing myself even less often. I felt like a shell, and I could feel myself falling deeper.

I hadn't seen Claude or Riley since we parted ways that first day at the train station, though that was not for their lack of trying. If I wasn't missing their attempts at visiting by being asleep, I was missing their attempts at visiting by ignoring them because I felt guilty at having slept through their visits. It was a vicious cycle, one that I was completely aware of but for some reason, did not want to break.

At first I felt guilty for feeling this way, guilty for wasting the life that so many people had died protecting. I felt guilty that so many of my loved ones had to deal with my being this way, and even more guilty of the ones that were watching from above as I slowly regressed.

I felt so weak, so tired all of the time. And I didn't know of any way that I could make myself better, even if I had wanted to. This was the life that I deserved after all. This was the logical solution to the things I had done and the mistakes that I forced onto others. I was a murderer. A killer. A bad person.

At one time I would have dismissed these thoughts as best I could, I would have fought them tooth and nail. But arguing with myself had become too difficult, especially as it became more clear that there was no way that I would win. My rational brain could not compete with my non rational one, it cared too much. And so I let these thoughts run their course, knowing but not fully understanding the extent with which they worsened my condition.

Things reached a fever pitch when I began losing my mind, falling into episodes of manic uncertainty where I would be overcome with strange sensations throughout my whole body, ones that would make my skin tingle uncontrollably and the blood underneath boil. And although I wasn't sure as to whether or not I actually wanted to better my situation, these episodes were definitely aspects that I wanted to avoid. I felt like I wasn't in control of myself, and I hated that.

I looked for relief in so many different places and ways, but nothing ever stuck around or made a difference. At least, nothing that was readily available to me did.

When you go to war, you look at life differently. Things become more simplistic, less complex as when they had before you left. Surrounded by those that you knew could die at any moment, the only way you could function is if you stopped looking at death as some kind of tragic thing that you had to be completely crushed by. And even though I no longer lived so close to death, that mindset never left me.

I had become numb, thinking of death as a trivial obstacle. But even still, the guilt for the death I had caused remained predominantly in my mind. And I was beginning to feel like a broken record, having thought about it a million times before and knowing that I would think about it a thousand times again.

All I knew now was the pain that I felt in my heart, the debilitating insults that my inner monologue hurled in my direction, and the guilt. The only positive thing that I could see in my life were the memories that I carried, which didn't prove to make anything better considering that half of them were created in the midst of the tragedy that was war.

The bag that I had brought with me after being dismissed from the military lay beside my front door, having been untouched since I first returned. But at this moment, I felt like I finally needed the one thing that I had brought with me besides all of the clothes that I knew I was never going to wear again.

I slung the bag over my shoulder and re entered my room. I sat atop the bed and let the bag fall onto the mattress at my side. I dug through the contents of the bag hastily, gripping down onto a tough metal surface that I eventually felt. I pulled the small handgun out of my bag without looking at it.

Every time I would go into battle I was accepting the possibility of death, and when I first tried to go with Raz on his suicide mission I was signing up for it. Death was no longer some foreign idea that I was scared of, death was something that I had come to terms with before and even went as far as to invite it. And at this moment, I felt the same.

It felt like I spent a million years in this moment, a million different memories and scenarios going through my head one by one. A hundred different faces of people I have known moving across the front of my vision like a slideshow, all of them offering somber yet supportive smiles. I could not help but smile back to them as

I brought my tightly gripped hand to my head.

"...don't get lost in yourself. They all love you so much."

Raz's voice was the last thing to penetrate my senses, these words offering a much different meaning now sitting in my room alone as opposed to the bench that we had at one time shared. Having at one time been a warning to myself, it almost seemed now like an encouragement. And now that I thought about it, maybe Raz's approval was the last thing I needed.

I forced my eyes shut, allowing the goosebumps to crawl across every inch of my skin.


End file.
